If you haven’t heard the saying yet, I’m sure you’ll hear it soon. Your network is your networth. Something as simple as meeting and connecting with the right people can have a profound affect on the outcome and opportunities you are presented with in your career and even sometimes your personal life. These networking tips have helped me and many others over the year to establish a strong network that continues to evolve with us throughout the ebbs and flows of our careers and 20s.

Figure Out What You’re Interested In

Knowing what direction you want to go in is step one. If you don’t know what field you want to work in, you probably won’t quite know who to start looking for. Take some time to make sure you have this part established. It’ll save you lots of time down the road. You don’t have to know the exact job you’re looking for, but a ballpark of the industry or a sector within the industry is a great place to start!

Find a Mentor

Having a mentor completely changed my career and personal life trajectory, there is no doubt about it. Having a mentor, or mentors can really help instill guardrails in your personal and professional life. If you think about it, this person has already been where you are now. They’ve been able to look back and reflect on the decisions they made at your age and either stand-by them, or realize they should have gone about these things differently. This wisdom is now being passed down to you to save you time, energy, pain, and possibly even money. Heck, your mentor might even have some networking tips that you’ve never thought of, or funny stories of when they fumbled the ball in their early days of networking.  Of course, you don’t have to do everything your mentors share or recommend to you, but it’s better to have the information than not.

How do you find a mentor you might ask? There really is no wrong way to go about this. If you went to school, it can be a professor you really clicked with, it can even be a teacher you had in high school. Maybe you ran into someone at a conference that you’ve stayed in touch with and really jive with. Once you’ve found the person you think you might want as a mentor, have more meetings with them and get to know them better. Once you feel comfortable and confident in the person, then ask if they would mind mentoring you. The biggest thing to remember is that you want this person to be miles ahead of you and share the same values and morals as you. It would be even better if they have a personal life you respect and desire as well. At the end of the day, if a mentor is there to give you guidance, why would you take advice from someone you don’t want to be anything like?

Advocate for Yourself and Put Yourself Out There

Growing up in school, we often had an adult who would advocate for us. Your teacher would point out that you were a hard worker, or your dad would introduce you to the local restaurant owner to help you get your first job. Well, the rest of our lives isn’t like that. You’re going to have to put yourself out there and sell yourself. This is no different in the networking process. If you want to connect with someone, you need to give them a reason to want to connect with you. Why would they want you in their circle? What do you offer that they don’t already have? What are you good at? Where do you see yourself going? What have you done to get to this point? Now, you don’t need to be boastful and egotistical. There’s a way to naturally bring these things up in conversation without coming off crass – hint ask them questions in this ballpark and I’m sure it’ll be followed with a “and what about you?”, which gives you the floor to share your story.

You want to be confident but not cocky when meeting people. In fact, I think that’s a good reminder in every aspect of life. You’re not trying to upstage the person, you’re just trying to level with them and show that you can keep up with them and are worthy of being in their orbit. Keep in mind this person should do the same for you. One of the most important things to keep in mind when building a network is quality over quantity. If you know a lot of people and yet none of them can provide any growth for you, then what you really have is a weak friend group. You want to build a strong network of people who can challenge you and motivate you, while also possibly opening doors for you later down the line.

Ask for Informational Interviews

Informational interviews are some of my favorite things to ask for and one of the most effective networking tips I’ve ever been given. Why? Because they are the least threatening way to ask to chat with someone – especially if you don’t have any mutuals or a true “reason” to talk to this person. The flip side of this is that most people if not everyone, love to talk about themselves. This means that you can ask the person anything you want (within reason), and you’ll get to hear all about their journey and maybe gain some nuggets of information as you go. Asking for an informational interview is a great way to be able to have a meaningful conversation with people all while connecting with someone you might not have otherwise. If you’re lucky, they’ll ask you why you chose to reach out to them and a few questions about where you are in your career journey. Most of the time, these interviews have ended in introductions to people in their circles and more follow-up meetings. You never know if you don’t ask.

>>Click here to download the Cold Email Outreach Template to help you with your next cold email. <<

Utilize LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a great networking tool, but not in the way you might think. I personally am against adding people for the sake of. If I don’t know them, I don’t add them. I like my LinkedIn network to be truly reflective of my network and who I really know. With that being said, the mutual contacts feature on LinkedIn can be a huge help when properly utilized. If you are trying to get a hold of someone and you see that you have a mutual, reach out to your mutual and ask if they are willing to do an introduction for you. This is why having a legitimate list of connections on LinkedIn is so important.

Another thing you can look at on LinkedIn is where someone has worked previously. Maybe you used to work at the same company, or maybe you went to the same school. Or maybe you had a similar career transition going from marketing to tech sales let’s say. No matter the similarity, doing some preliminary research here can be a great starting point for getting a conversation going.

Pass the Baton

I cannot stress this part enough. Just like your mentor will pass a baton to you, it’s crucial that you do the same thing for the people behind you. Odds are giving and helping others will give you more in return than when you just go out searching for something to take. The world is so small and you never know who knows who. You might also learn something from the person you’re helping. And who knows, maybe one day they’ll actually end up being ahead of you and you’ll need to call on them. You just never know, so don’t think you don’t have time to help those behind you or even on the same road as you. There is plenty of room for everyone at the top. Make sure you don’t do the climb alone. Bring others up with you, because at the end of the day, those people are still a part of your network. Better yet, share these networking tips with them and watch them grow in this area right beside you.

>>Click here to read Giving Back…Life is Bigger Than Just You<<

Networking isn’t about the instant result. Networking is all about connecting with like-minded individuals and having a strong rolodex of people to call on when you need it. Use these networking tips to help you build the connections now and worry about what you’ll get from it later, or better yet, not at all. I’m confident you’ll never regret the time and effort put into building a strong network.